No Diablo 3 @ PAX East

A fan expressed his disappointment that Diablo III is once again not making an appearance at a major gaming convention, and got a reply from Bashiok.

Why oh why is Diablo 3 not at Pax East.?.. You brought SC2 last year. You brought Diablo 3 to Pax Prime.. But the East Coast gets hosed out of playing Diablo 3 again. Thx Blizzard for hating on the East Coast.. SC2 is a sucky game to bring to a convention unlike Diablo 3 which is the perfect game.. but yet we got SC2 and no Diablo 3. /Rage

Bashiok: To be fair Blizzard didn’t actually attend the previous PAX East in an official capacity. NVidia wanted to display the game so we sent a couple people out to make sure questions could be answered (it was still in beta at the time). And I guess we were feeling bored or masochistic and decided to throw a fairly impromptu mini tournament. Which was way more work than it seemed it was going to be.

Anyway, we have BlizzCon and we think that’s a pretty good once a year showing and celebration of our games. If we ever intend to show at any other events we’ll let you know beforehand.

Blizzard has shown no real urgency in getting D3 out to conventions. Last year and the year before there were numerous events when SC2 was shown while D3 was not, and apparently that streak is continuing into 2011. Counter to the OP’s assertion, I think it’s easier to put SC2 at a show, since it’s a head to head MP game and almost everyone has some idea how to play it already. Right?

On the other hand, everyone knows how to play PvM in an RPG like D3, or can pick it up fairly quickly. At least well enough to have some fun and get their feet wet, if not exactly excelling at the process. So it’s odd that Bliz isn’t making more effort to get D3 out to gaming conventions. I guess they figure it doesn’t matter? They know we’ll all buy it anyway, and figure their main promotional thrust, which will start sometime around the beta (later this year?) will be enough to get casual fans interested?